The price of ARK: Survival Evolved has increased its price to $59.99 (it was previously $29.99, according to Kotaku) ahead of its full release in August of this year, according to this Community Crunch post on ARK: Survival Evolved‘s official website.
Here is the official announcement from the Community Crunch post:
“This coming Monday (June 12th), the console version of ARK: Survival Evolved will see an increase in price, and on July 7th, the PC version of ARK: Survival Evolved will also the see an increase.
We’ll be providing further information on the reason for these changes after the live stream on Monday at E3, so be sure to tune in! If you or a friend still have ARK on your wishlist, you’ll want to purchase it before the price changes!”
ARK: Survival Evolved was released as an early access game in June 2015. It skyrocketed in popularity, and currently has over 5 million downloads and over 650,000 players in the past two weeks according to SteamSpy (SteamSpy is still in beta so the amount of downloads might not be fully accurate). Also, on Steam, the game currently has over 100,000 reviews, so obviously people have been interested in this upcoming game.
“ARK is a huge game, in terms of geographical space, scope of content, features, technology, and just about every other metric. We’re a veteran team with some major hits behind our leads, and much of the core challenge is already met, but this is still an ambitious one for us,” said the development team on Steam when asked why the game was in early access. “We want the player community’s help to ‘evolve’ ARK into the dinosaur world game that we’ve been dreaming about since the days we played with plastic green T-Rex toys during elementary school recess, since we shed a tear to ‘The Land Before Time’, since we wistfully imagined the towering cities of ‘Dinotopia’, and since we nearly choked on our popcorn to the thrills of ‘Jurassic Park.'”
In ARK: Survival Evolved, players are placed on an island where they must protect themselves from numerous human conditions, along with the dinosaurs that roam the island. “…you must hunt, harvest, craft items, grow crops, & build shelters to survive,” it says in the description for the game on Steam. Along with keeping dinosaurs from killing you, you can also tame them and keep them as pets.
The full version of ARK: Survival Evolved was initially planned to be released in June 2016, one year after being in early access. The game’s full release was delayed until this upcoming August.
“While we have the foundation of our game at Early Access launch, there are many currently-planned features and content additions we will be adding over the year from EA to full release,” said the development team on Steam when asked how the full version will be different from the early access version. “Beyond such planned features, will be adding TONS of aspects suggested or iterated on by the community, hence the point of Early Access!”
The development team of ARK: Survival Evolved had previously said that the price will increase when the full version was to come out in the Q&A available on the game’s Steam page. So, along with the announcement in its Community Crunch post, hopefully, fans weren’t taken by surprise at the large increase in price.
Console versions (it’s available on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4) of ARK: Survival Evolved will also be getting an increase in price on June 12. The full version of ARK: Survival Evolved on Steam for $59.99.will be released on August 8. The early access version of the game is still available.
Featured image via Flickr/BagoGames.e
